Monday, February 15, 2010

What Clouds Are Made Of

So lets see, what's been happening at our house recently......

Chris has been working hard on the basement and I'd say we are about 90% finished. It looks really great, I will post a pic at the end to show you some of the progress, but we will put really good ones out when it is completely finished.


My friend Deni came out for a visit. It was so fun to have a few days off work and have some much needed me time with a good friend. The kids really enjoyed Deni's visit. They still seem to be looking around the house for her in hopes that she is just playing a really tough game of hide and seek. And Deni, this is for you......hot dog hot dog hot digity dog!


Wes and Mia are making some progress on the potty training front.....well, I should say Mia is making progress.....but Wes is really happy for her. She seems to be doing well at using the potty pretty regularly. I took them to Target today to buy them big boy/girl underware as an incentive......they seemed pretty jazzed about it......we'll see.


We have all been good and healthy this winter as compared to last. I think the kids being really excited about washing their hands has helped temendously. They have been constantly asking to go to the park recently, but it's been too cold and windy to go. It's been a challange finding things to keep them busy when it's too cold for outside. Can't wait for spring!


Oh, about the title.......So we have this book about clouds, and this little cloud turns into all kinds of shapes and animals, and then at the end joins the other clouds and it rains......so Chris has been trying to teach the kids that clouds are made of water. The other day Chris asked Mia what clouds were made of. Our brilliant daughter replied with confidence that clouds are made of ........BACON! Chris and I both had a laugh and he asked her again what clouds were made of, and this time she said.....WAFFLES! In all fairness, it was 6am and waffles and bacon sounded like a pretty good idea to me too.




























Friday, December 25, 2009

Merry Colorado Christmas

So Merry Christmas everyone! We started our day bright and early.....5am to be exact. We kept the kiddos upstairs first thing this morning and did our normal routine so that Chris and I could actually get a shower before the days festivities began. We came downstairs at about 6:30am and the kids dove right in to all that santa had left us. I think by the end they were like "what the heck are we getting all of this stuff for??" They were in complete overload by lunch time and fell asleep for nap in like 5 minutes. They are sleeping right now and I don't expect to hear a peep from them for another half hour....they just had to much new stuff to process. It is a crisp and grey day here in the 20's with probably somewhere in the range of 8" of snow on the ground from the last storm that passed through here. We have a big ole rib roast in the oven for dinner tonight and plan to lounge in our sweatpants all day and eat way too much......life is good :) Here are a few pics from this morning. Hope everyone is having as fun and relaxing of a day as we are......


Look Who's 2...and it isnt me.....




School Girl Charm


















Shit eating Grin



















Cuteness abound
















Probably did not want to see everyone..but tough.

Our Thanksgiving Trip

Sorry it's been a while, time really is flying right by. Since our last blog post we took a trip to St. Louis for Thanksgiving. It was really great to see all of the family. While we were there the kids had their 2nd birthday. Thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate. We had a little celebration with just me, Chris, Wes & Mia before we left for Thanksgiving. Wes and Mia got shiney new tricycles. Here is a pic of them trying them out.....














Then we had a second celebration on Thanksgiving day where Wes and Mia had chocolate pie.....













Then we had a third celebration on their actual birthday where we had pizza and cupcakes - yummy......


Wes and Mia did really great on their first big car trip. We had lots of fun in St. Louis playing with all of their cousins. Thanks for a great holiday....see you all again this summer!

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Trick or Treat?......Definitely trick

So I thought I'd post a few quick pics of our Halloween fun and that this would only take a few minutes to put together.......but wait, is that screaming I hear on the baby monitor?? Yes, it is.....that couldn't possibly be our sweet babies - yeah right. I am not joking about what I am about to explain next. So, my lovely husband is in the kitchen making ground vegetable soup (all you Tepen's will know just the tastey soup I am referring to), and I am in the office getting ready to post the Halloween pics, the kids are in their room for nap time. Suddenly, there is screaming being blasted from the monitor. I rush in to the kitchen and ask Chris if he knows what's going on, he doesn't, so I run upstairs to investigate. Let me preface the scene I entered into by saying that the kids are potty training now. At daycare they are teaching them to take off their own diapers and then hop on to the potty. So I open the door to their room and I see both Mia and Wes with their diapers completely off. Mia has poop on both hands and feet. Wes has basically used his bed to wipe the rest of the poop off of his but, so the sheets and blankets are streaked in poop. Oh yes, then there are several stray turds on the floor which happens to also be covered in clothes - clean clothes that were folded neatly in a drawer before the nap. I honestly didn't know where to start. So you ask how our Halloween weekend went.......definitely full of tricks.....tricky babies that is.

We did manage to head over to one of our friends houses last night and joined in some pre trick or treating festivities with them and their neighbors. Thanks to the Nuetzel's for having us over, we all had a great time.

Here are some of our Halloween pics.....






Monday, October 19, 2009

Evolution of the Handshake

Have you ever wondered where the handshake came from...well, I will let you know. If you watch kids on the playground, in your home, at daycare...wherever kids are at it will become quite obvious. When kids meet, the like to lift their shirts and show off their belly buttons. It doesnt matter if it is a boy or girl, black or white, short or tall and skinny or fat. Not only do they like to show you their belly buttons, they like to touch them. They start with touching their own, then they like to reach over and touch their new friends. Sometimes they will reach across and touch each others at the same time. At that point their arms cross each other, just like in a handshake. At some point in time, it was decided that it is improper to touch anothers belly button and it would be more prudent to touch hands instead. I'm thinking it was a women that decided this. Why do I think this you ask, because when was the last time you saw a woman slap another woman on the butt...guys dont give it a second thought....women get appalled.

Here is a funny story from the other day. After daycare the kids usually get some juice and a snack. Their snack for the day happened to be some pretzels and raisins. When I got home from work, Wes was still carrying around a few raisins in his little mits. Why he didnt eat them and was saving them for later I do not know. I like to lay down on the floor and play with the kids while Diane makes dinner or gets into a discussion why I am laying on the floor and not putting an addition on the house or something similar. Wes comes over and starts playing around. He lifts up my shirt and starts poking my belly button. I dont give it a second thought since he is just saying hello and they both like to do it. About fifteen minutes later after Wes was done and had moved on to help out in the kitchen Mia comes over and starts playing with my belly button. She starts saying raisin, raisin, raisin...I'm like, yeah you had raisins for snack. Well, lo and behold, she reaches into my belly button and takes out a raisin. This cracked Diane up. Well, for the next few days Mia would come over lift up my shirt, play with my belly button and say raisin, raisin, raisin...

I dont know about other places, but here in Denver we have been inundated with ED ads. I bet there is one at every series of commercials. My favorite lately has been the little blue pill ad, viagra, with the guy walking down the street, window shopping or on his way to the doctor. He starts a conversation with his reflection on whether he is going to talk to his "doctor" about his little problem. Now stop and think about it for a second, this guy is going to see his doctor about not being able to get a woody and is talking to an imaginary friend who happens to be himself. He obviously has more pressing issues and really should be seeing a psychologist about getting a padded room and a little white jacket.
Guess I got off onto a tangent, according to Diane, this is all about the kids....did you know that the toilet locks also work on blonde girls named Diane....she couldnt get the lid open because it had a toilet lock...maybe I should put one on every toilet, at the very least, it will stop her from clogging the toilet every few days.

Tale of the tsunami....makes you stop and think, what the heck now. Denver doesnt have tsunamis. Diane was acting crazy again, trying to snap me with the towel, running around waving her arms around like Bruce Lee, making crazy karate kids sounds. She stops midstream and says "I'm fast, I'm like a tidal wave" I'm like, tidal waves arent that fast. If you are a tidal wave, then I am a tsunami. She is like, nuh uh...I'm a tsunami. I said, you cant steel my ideas. I then told her there is no way you are a tsunami. You are a big rock, no you are a big flat rock, then expanded to, you are a big flat rock on level ground. That is the speed of Di. So if Diane asks who is more like a tsunami, you will have the whole story and not just her convoluted version about personality.

What is up with the kids? They like to run around like Indians at a camp fire. Wes likes to hit and bite. He spends his evenings, at least most of them, in time out for various offenses. They both go up and down the stairs without any real problems. Their vocabulary increases more and more each day. They know a lot of their colors. A few weeks ago they were both playing with the activity cube. It has bent wires with beads, and all kinds of other activities on it. All of a sudden they both started pushing beads from one side of the wire to another and counting. Simultaneously, they started counting...one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, ten....me and Diane looked at each other and said wow, I didnt know they could count to ten. Then I said, yeah, but I'm pretty sure they skipped nine.

They have both been in toddler beds since they were about 16 months old and stopped falling out after about two weeks. They are still really good sleepers and sleep for ten hours a night. I cant believe they are also still taking two hour naps in the afternoon every day. I'm trying to teach them their left and right. We just started to try and get them potty trained. They have had their potties for a few months now but never really tried to get them to use them. Since daycare doesnt try to potty train them until they enter toddler two, we didnt think it productive to put a lot of effort into it. Mia has pee pee'd into hers a couple of times and Wes took a duce this past weekend. Now wont you really be looking forward to future blogs and hearing about them using the potty....more toilet stories, they just change from Diane clogging the toilet to the kids.

If you havent heard, my brother David and his girlfriend are expecting a baby boy this February. He didnt bother to call and tell me. My mom called, not me, she called Diane and starts straight into this dissertation of seeing what baby stuff we have left and if we still have the baby blankets and I'm sure several other items. Diane was like, what are you talking about babies stuff for, what is going on. My mom was like, I'm sure you know, if you dont then Chris does...nope, no such luck. Once she spilled the beans, it made a lot more sense. So I figure the only way anyone else is going to find out is via my blog. Congratulations and best wishes to them, even though he didnt bother to tell me. So much for the rich uncle buying expensive Christmas presents every year for the kids.

I think that is enough for now. I will try and post another soon since I didnt write a lot about the kiddos. We will all be home for Turkey Day.

Thanks to the Strongs for lending us the play tunnels and house in the pictures below. They really like playing with them.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Basement, basement, basement......

So, have you been wondering what the Tepen Clan have been doing for the last 2 months?? Please refer to the title of this blog....that should have all of the answers you need. Besides "the basement" we really have not been able to do too much. Chris has been working down there every weekend since the last update. I actually got to get some of the painting done, at this point I'd say I'm at about 60% finished. Chris has about half of the tile done and he just installed the cabinets for the bar area today......it's actually starting to look pretty cool now! Hopefully the granite guy can come out this week to get started on counter tops, the granite we picked is SOOOO COOL! We have pretty much spent our entire summer working on the basement.

We did manage to squeak in some down time. We had a few visitors this summer....Chris' Aunt Jean and Uncle Denny,friends Beth and Skip, and Chris' mom and dad, and my mom is visiting this coming week - see you in a couple of days mom. We went to a couple of BBQ's, the most recent at the Nuetzel's which we thoroughly enjoyed. We hope that my friend Deni and also that my friend Sharon and family will be able to see us in the upcoming months. Oh, and Denny and Jean, we had the kids in the superman t-shirts just yesterday and I totally forgot to snap a picture of them....I will try to do that next time, they were really cute in the shirts!

The kids are really changing quickly now. It's amazing how rapidly their language and comprehension have taken off in the past few weeks. The are totally obsessed with being outside. They love running around and kicking a ball and playing in the sand. They are going up and down the steps really well now. They totally LOVE corn on the cob, Grand Junction peaches, grapes and cantaloupe. Oh, and Wes can put down more baked beans that most adults I know......of course, this also has it's downside if you know what I mean - ha ha!
Enough rambling....how about some new pics. Enjoy!